[Lowfer] Icom R75 Frequency Jumps

[ToddRoberts2001 at aol.com]

John thanks for the heads up on the problem with the noisy PBT dual  pot
control in the Icom  R75. I'm not sure how hard it is to access those  
pots? Do
you have to pull the front panel off and is it a very involved  procedure?
 
My thinking is if someone has a currently good working R75 one could
extend the life of the pots with a good shot of Deoxit F5 fader
lube into the pots? The Deoxit F5 has restored some pretty noisy pots
for me in the past. It might be good prevention to put some lubricant 
in those pots if possible. Could someone do it with those pots, or are they 
 sealed?
 
Another thing I am doing with my R75 is I leave the top cover off all the  
time.
 I have discovered that leaving the top cover on literally turns the  
chassis of the R75 
into an oven. After being turned on for an hour or so many parts inside  
were
almost too hot to touch. I am sure this would shorten the life of some 
components like the electrolytic capacitors and possibly others.
 
I found leaving the top cover off allowed most of the heat to escape
so most of the components are now cool to the touch and a few 
that were very hot before are now barely lukewarm.
 
Icom did not provide for any air circulation with the top cover on.
There are no louvers or vents for the air to circulate. One project I
am working on is to build a new top cover using perforated metal
which would look a little better than leaving the top wide open. But it  is
worth it to have a cool-running R75 and it is used indoors all of the  time
here anyway so it is not exposed to any outside weather.
 
Another benefit of having the R75 locked to GPS is the radio doesn't  need
to be turned on all the time to help stability like with the  internal 
crystal.
It has instant-on stability with the external GPS standard connected, so it 
is good to go with ARGO right after turning it on and the rest of the time 
it can be left turned off when not in use.
 
Thanks, 73 - Todd WD4NGG
 
 
 
In a message dated 8/7/2013 6:58:54 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
w1tag at charter.net writes:

The pots were made by Toko, and have been discontinued. But 
Icom seems  to have a good supply at 16 bucks apiece. Since I had also 
been having  issues with audio volume jumps, I picked up replacement 
AF/RF gain controls  as well